Legio IX Hispania (25) (Patreon)

Lyra drifted in and out, soothed to the gentle rumbling of the car beneath them. She heard other voices, but couldn't muster the energy to care about them.

It was probably another changeling trick, anyway. They just wanted her to feel hopeful, only to snatch that joy away. She did not think much about her escape, because that would mean challenging whether or not it was real. Once tested too closely, it would all puff away like a dream, and she would wake up in her lonely cell again.

Except that wasn't what happened. Something nudged her gently on the shoulder, and she looked up. She was on a narrow bunk, wrapped in a soft blanket. The pony beside her was Stalwart—the thin one, not the perfect stallion her visitors always imitated.

"Lyra, can you hear me?"

She shifted in her bed, but there was no room to roll over. Whoever built this had packed it in for maximum claustrophobic efficiency. "Maybe. You can't harvest me, I don't have any magic."

"We know that," said a voice behind Stalwart. It took her another second to realize who it was. The memory was still there, a relic of a different life. A much better one. "Don't freak out, we're going to help you."

Help. That wasn't something that she heard many bugs promising her. But maybe some of them were capable. At least one.

She rolled out of bed and onto her hooves. She was in a tiny, enclosed room: a train! Only this one wasn't moving anymore. "Help me?"

"With this first." Stalwart held something towards her in the air—a large pitcher of water. "Drink. There's food too. Bland, but not rotten."

"You'll need your strength," said Starlight, a little louder. "We're heading all the way to Los Pegasus."

Octavia stood near the door, occasionally glancing through a narrow peephole in the wood. "It would be better if we could just give you your magic back, but unfortunately... nopony here knows the method."

Lyra could see clean water, and smell real food. They brought it to a table for her, and she ate as quickly as she dared.

Changelings in their prison couldn't tell the difference between healthy food and maggot-infested rot, since they didn't eat any of it themselves. Her guards thought she was ungrateful when she didn't want to eat, rather than sickened.

Stalwart took the seat next to her, watching to make sure she ate. "You escaped," she whispered to him, while waiting for her stomach to settle between bites. "How?"

"An old friend." He nodded to the side of the car, where another creature sat. He remained in shadow, cowering from the eager ponies. Lyra squinted, and saw—there was a bug there, not wearing any disguise. Thorax. "Join us, Thorax. You deserve more praise than I. Faithful as Damon to Pythias."

Lyra blinked, letting the strange-sounding names wash over her. But the bug did rise, making his slow way over to their table. As he did, Stalwart pushed aside a few stray papers and books to make room for him. "You haven't had anything since the prison either, friend. If you will not eat, drink."

He didn't wait for permission, pouring it. As he did, Starlight circled around the table from the other side, settling beside Lyra. The others remained carefully distant, never closing within reach. There were two of them, Octavia and a strange bat pony Lyra had never met. But they hadn't attacked Thorax, which counted for something.

"We accept the... overwhelming evidence of his positive contributions," Octavia said, terse. "But that does not mean we've let down our guard, bug. Make one wrong move..."

Thorax cowered—and Stalwart straightened, moving his chair subtly closer. "Threaten him not, lady. This bug saved my life, and Lyra's also. He labored with honor befitting more than an auxiliary. In his faithfulness, I name him brother. No man or woman or beast under heaven will threaten my brother."

He glowered at Octavia and the bat pony, until they both looked away. Even the stallion was intimidated—a thestral scared off by a lean unicorn!

Lyra didn't need to know the specifics. She didn't ask them while she ate—it did not really matter how Thorax and Stalwart had escaped the prison, if ultimately they had. But one question remained unanswered, one that gnawed at her as the seconds ticked by. "Why?" she asked Thorax, without the bitterness the others had shown. "Why would you help us when we got caught? You didn't have to."

The bug looked up, and met her eyes. At least—she imagined he had. Those multifaceted eyes made it difficult to tell for sure what he was seeing. "We had... some time to talk," he whispered. He glanced nervously at Starlight, but she wasn't glaring either. "Not every bug in the world wants to live in Queen Chrysalis's kingdom. She makes us do things we hate. We can't refuse... just like you can't. If you fight, no food. You die.

"But Stalwart Hope says we can be free. His friends are good at killing tyrants. Ponies hate us too much, and we deserve it. But to his kind, we are strangers. They could punish the guilty and spare the innocent."

"Innocent," Octavia repeated, her voice bitter. "Ask Lyra how innocent she thinks any of you are."

Me? Lyra looked across the car, to where Octavia sat by the entrance. "I think you would know more than I would, Octavia. Changelings didn't do this to me. Steal... all my magic away. Turn the world gray. I heard they didn't like to do that, now I know why. Nothing to eat."

Octavia winced. "Not that—though I suppose the harvesting centers are among their worst evils. I meant your marefriend. Though I guess it has been a few years since the..."

"She wasn't here," Starlight whispered, holding up her foreleg. "She was in Tirek's part of Equestria. She wouldn't know about the executions."

Executions.

That word lingered in the air between them, heavier than any prison bars, or the thickest whip.

Everypony fell abruptly silent, even Stalwart Hope. The stallion lowered his head to her.

For the first time since using her last shard of stolen magic, Lyra felt something, as vibrant and real as the world she remembered. But this one wasn't the flood of joy and wonder at feeling unicorn magic returned, if only briefly. This was the reverse, a dagger shoved straight through her ribs into her heart.

The world began to spin, and she would've fallen over completely if she wasn't already sitting on her haunches. As it was, she still flopped sideways, only slowing when Stalwart caught her with a foreleg.

Despite her physical weakness, her words came clearly now—as clear as a pony with all their magic intact. "What happened to Sweetie Drops?"

Octavia winced, taking a few nervous steps back. "I, uh—thought you knew." She lowered her head in a nervous bow. "Lyra, I'm so sorry. You shouldn't have found out like this."

"How?" Lyra straightened, then turned on her. Her tail flicked sharply from one side to the other, eyes narrowed. "What happened?"

"She got caught," Starlight said. "Her and several other... agents, from that organization she worked for. They were trying to assassinate the queen. Unfortunately, they weren't successful. She caught them, and..." She shook her head weakly. "I know how little it helps, but she died a hero."

Starlight was right about one thing—it didn't help very much. Lyra glowered at them all, cowering in their little shelter hidden along a lonely train.

But that anger was already fading, replaced with something much more familiar. Bitter, empty cold. The one pony she had hoped to see again, the one inspiring her to keep fighting and keep surviving when plenty of other Appleloosa ponies rolled over and gave up.

She wouldn't be reunited now, or ever again. Lyra Heartstrings was just too slow. Tirek had stolen a great deal from her, but not so much that she couldn't still cry. She dropped right there on the wooden floor, not caring who saw. Nothing mattered now; Lyra had lost.

Something touched her shoulder—warmth, and a familiar scent. There was only one pony brave enough to go anywhere near her; of course it would be Stalwart.

"You should've come sooner," she whispered, through tears. "She's dead. So many good ponies are dead."

He said nothing at first, watching her with a face of flat, powerful confidence. Somehow, his imprisonment hadn't dimmed that strength. "You cared for her?" he asked, voice low. "This one called... Sweetie Drops? She was important to you?"

She nodded. In another life, Lyra might have hesitated with the details, fearing that a creature from such an ancient society would carry a bevy of ancient prejudices along with him. The last thing she needed was to hear all the reasons why she shouldn't love a pony her own sex.

But that Lyra was gone now, dead along with the Equestria she'd grown up in. She no longer cared. "More than anypony. When we were younger, I thought it would be... forever. I loved her that much. Even had a ring picked out, but... I never got a chance to ask her."

The pony beside her tensed as she spoke. But if he was going to be angry with her, she just hoped he would get it over with.

"Perhaps there was something of Diana in you. Thinking back to the first day we met, I can see some of it now." He approached her, holding one hoof under her face. He lifted her gently, so she met his eyes. "Your despair will not serve her memory. Heartbreak is natural, but it can be overcome. It must be, to make a place the gods can use."

His words were so strange, she didn't know how to react. Lyra stared after him, utterly bewildered. "Have you ever lost someone you loved, Stalwart?"

He nodded sharply, expression going stiff. "Yes. I have. And I can tell you what served his memory better than tears."

He leaned in close, whispering into her ear. "Vengeance, Lyra. They say Phlegethon scorches through the underworld, burning the damned condemned to torture in Tartarus." He held her with magic, keeping Lyra from looking away. "That is what you must do, Lyra. Drink deep from that river. Feel its fire in your veins, the flames that burn your chest until you find the wicked one responsible, and send them to Pluto's palace for grim judgment."

"That's maybe a little extreme," said Starlight, whispering near the wall.

But Lyra didn't hear her anymore. Starlight Glimmer, Twilight's star pupil—she had failed to preserve Equestria while it was still one nation. When dark forces divided it, she had failed to keep ponies safe from Queen Chrysalis.

There was one group she had seen win against the evil that infested Equestria. One pony who never lost sight of their goal, one stallion who emerged from their prison half-starved and killed every bug who tried to stop him from leaving on the way out.

Stalwart Hope is primitive, but he's a kind of primitive who won. Rome hadn't been conquered by its enemies, Equestria had. Maybe it was time to try another way.

"How?" she whispered, grinding her hooves on the wooden floor beneath her. "How do I do that?"

Stalwart rested one hoof on her shoulder, pulling close to her. "Swear with your soul, and your blood, and your family's blood. Swear it so the gods can hear you."

"Help me," she pled, desperate. Anything that could keep her from falling back into that lightless despair. Sweetie Drops would not want her to give up. Bon Bon fought for her country, and deserved far better than she got. "How?"

He nodded to her—respect? The first time she had seen that, while not in the form of a cowering bow. Something levitated into the air between them, zipping over—a round piece of rock, smooth and clean. He brushed away the dirt with his leg, then lifted her hoof to touch it.

"Say what I say, and mean it," he said. "By Jupiter Stone, I will find the one who killed my beloved, and pierce their heart as they have pierced mine. I will slay all who stand before me, until the blood of my beloved cries no more from the dust."

His horn lit brilliantly blue as he said it—bright enough that the other ponies in the car stumbled to sudden alertness, staring at them in shock. It was a spell, but not any composed by Equestria's ancient sorcerers.

Lyra had no magic of her own, but she could still do her best. She didn't need to know what it all meant. "By Jupiter Stone—I will find Chrysalis, and pierce her heart as she pierced mine. I will slay any who stand before me, until Sweetie Drops no longer cries from the dust."

With every word, a little of that anger Stalwart described took the place of coldness and fear. Until she finished the final word, and the stone exploded into little showers of dust.

Lyra felt the heat wash over her—bright and terrible, sweeping away all exhaustion and all fear. She opened her eyes, and saw a world full of color she had not seen since the day Tirek took her magic away.

Starlight Glimmer swore, muttering something under her breath. "Your magic... Lyra, look at your flank!"

She did, and saw. There was her mark, exactly as she remembered it. After all the years she spent longing for this day, she expected joy, satisfaction—relief.

Instead, she felt only confidence. "I'm going to do it," she said, finally releasing Stalwart's shoulder. "I'm going to kill Queen Chrysalis."